Friday, September 28, 2012

This Day in History: Sep 28, 1988: A cult leader kills one of his followers

Roch Theriault fatally wounds Solange Boislard in
Ontario, Canada. Theriault, the leader of the most bizarre and violent
cult in Canadian history, often physically abused his followers.
Obsessed with anatomy and medicine, Theriault performed crude intestinal
surgery on Boislard by slicing open her abdomen and ripping out a piece
of intestine with his bare hands. He then ordered another follower to
stitch up the wound with a needle and thread. When she died the next day
in agonizing pain, he sawed off the top of her head, and then sexually
assaulted her. Before burying the woman, he removed a rib, which he wore
around his neck.

Theriault was arrested and charged with murder the following year
after another cult member, whose arm had been hacked off by Theriault
with a meat cleaver, told hospital authorities what had happened. At his
trial in 1993, even more horrific tales came to light. The cult leader
had burned women with a welding torch, put vice-grips on their nipples,
and cut their fingers off with a wire cutter. The alcoholic and
delusional Theriault apparently thought he was driving the devil out of
them.

Theriault also demanded sex from all of the women members in an
attempt to increase the number of cult members through children. After a
new member of the cult, an escapee from a mental hospital, beat a child
at the compound, Theriault performed "surgery" on the child. When the
child then died, Theriault castrated the man as punishment. After
authorities learned about some of the activities at the ranch, they
removed all of the children.